2015-11-20

Addendum: "This is shocking rhetoric," wrote Hillary Clinton. "It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country." And anyone seeking to "lead" this country should be denounced by all who live in this country. Grown people don't need "leaders." And the real term for it is "rulers."

2015-11-16

The Philosophy of Liberty is really the best, most concise, and most understandable explanation I have seen of how to determine what is right and wrong in the realm of politics. Any law that cannot be justified on the basis of these principles is unjust. Any time a freedom lover, anarchist, libertarian, or voluntaryist justifies force to violate these principles, he or she is making a terrible mistake.

I've seen people in these camps (or this camp) occasionally veer off of these principles for causes that might seem "left-wing" or "right-wing" or might not seem to fit into either category. At the same time, I've seen people who've never even seen this presentation follow these principles perfectly. This is what libertarianism is about (and all those other groups I listed above). This is what morality is about. Everything else involves initiating force against people who have done nothing wrong.

More great viewing today is this amazing cartoon from 1939: Peace on Earth. Or its 1955 remake, Good Will to Men. Perhaps those who lived through the disastrous great wars of the twentieth century did not worship warfare as we are sometimes led to believe.

Today is also St. Martin's Day, honoring Martin of Tours, who refused to continue to fight in Caesar's army after he became a Christian. Martin later opposed execution as a punishment for heresy, rightly recognizing that Christians could not support using the state to punish religious error.